A new event-focused start­up may make social media his­to­ry by enabling peo­ple miles away from a social, enter­tain­ment or news­wor­thy event to “be there” in real time.

YeHive, the brain­child of for­mer Mis­sis­sip­pi State Uni­ver­si­ty grad­u­ate Brad Fuller and Cam­gian Microsys­tems Cor­po­ra­tion CEO Gary But­ler, allows social media users to cre­ate an event them­selves or search for one cre­at­ed by oth­ers, with­out being lim­it­ed to peo­ple they like or fol­low.  YeHive blends fea­tures from oth­er social media sites with its own unique char­ac­ter­is­tics, focus­ing not on peo­ple but on events.  Any­thing from a music fes­ti­val, a crowd-pulling sport­ing event or a birth­day par­ty can be cap­tured as an event by the platform.

Being there when you’re miles away

As Co-founder Brad Fuller put it, “If you’re hav­ing a birth­day par­ty, your grand­moth­er in Seat­tle can see what’s hap­pen­ing through­out the par­ty even though she can’t trav­el to be there in person.”

Intre­pid social media man­agers will be intrigued by the site’s new mobile app, which allows atten­dees at an event to post about it instant­ly and watch their con­tent scroll along the event’s time line.
Any­one else who want­ed to be there but couldn’t make it can eaves­drop sim­ply by look­ing at the real-time postings.

Over 40 soft­ware devel­op­ers teamed togeth­er to build the plat­form, which is designed to ease at least some of the strain for com­mu­ni­ty man­agers and con­tent man­agers via an inte­gral pro­fan­i­ty filter.
The site’s home­page will col­late and update the top 20 nation­al events as reflect­ed by the num­ber of users check­ing in.  Cour­tesy of Google Maps, there’s also an “events near me” fea­ture which lets users tune in to local happenings.

A new media phe­nom­e­non in the making?

Fuller and the site’s co-founder, Gary But­ler, came up with the idea for YeHive dur­ing brain­storm­ing ses­sions over the sum­mer.  If it prof­its users as well as the founders hope, it may yet alter the way break­ing news gets dis­sem­i­nat­ed.  There’s no rea­son why YeHive users shouldn’t post about an event if they’re there while it hap­pens.  With enough users look­ing at the post­ed pho­tos and com­ments, break­ing news could soon have a sig­nif­i­cant new audience.

Addi­tion­al fea­tures are in the pipeline, with pri­vate event cre­ation sched­uled to come on-stream by Christmas.

Telling­ly, the company’s mot­to is “Be there.”